Authored By: Candace Whitman
Have you Googled yourself and your firm recently? Alison Monahan of The Balance recommends that you make Googling yourself a habit in your professional life. Clients and colleagues are likely to Google you, so it is an excellent practice to periodically Google yourself to see what others may find if they happen to be researching you online.
One great tip Monahan gives that will help you see the most accurate depiction of your online reputation is to use a browser that you do not normally use. This will ensure that your Google search is not clouded by your previous searches.
You will start by just Googling your name and/or the name of your business. You may need to get specific to narrow your results. You can type in the city you live in, the name of your business, or your specific social media handles. Look at the first few pages of your search results, including Google images, to see what appears.
As you are looking, keep an eye out for images or posts that may reflect negatively on your reputation. You may find something that you posted in the past that needs to be deleted. If it something that is not owned by you, you may be able to ask the owner of the image or post or the website it is posted on to have it removed.
After you have assessed the situation, you can attempt to clean up or improve your search results.
To read more about why you should Google yourself and how you can improve your Google search results, click here.
Photo Credit: Antonio Guillem